Tweets from Tahrir Square

Egyptians protesting against the military council in Tahrir Square, Cairo Photograph: Mohamed Omar/EPA

The aerial pictures showed an impressive mass of humanity in Tahrir, but it is on Twitter that the extraordinary individual stories of the Egyptian revolution can be found.

So we can glimpse events through the eyes of Mahmoud Salam, or @Sandmonkey, one of the most prominent bloggers in Egypt. Yesterday he set out to Tahrir from Heliopolis across the city in a convoy of vehicles, a "car march". "All hung the gasmasks outside the car and blew their horns, all the way to #tahrir. Many people joined," he tweeted.

The gas masks were to protect against teargas, a far more immediate concern for the protesters than Monday's elections. When the gas and gunshots started last Saturday, Sandmonkey, a parliamentary candidate, immediately suspended his campaign, tweeting: "To anyone I was supposed to meet today. Everything is cancelled till further notice." Instead he delivered supplies to Tahrir and visited his friend in hospital: "What? @MaLek LOST HIS EYE?"

On Mohamed Mahmoud Street protesters set up makeshift hospitals to treat the wounded. It was on Twitter that the small acts of humanity that occur in the midst of dramatic events were reported. "#Egypt is amazing, the pharmacist just gave us a discount, because the supplies are going to the injured in#tahrir. #egysolidarity," tweeted @Egyptocracy. She had done this kind of thing before – in January her cornea was ulcerated during the uprising. Now she was back in the middle of it, as half an hour later she tweeted: "I just got teargassed. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck." Five minutes later, at 12.50am: "We got out. I am dizzy and nauseous." But by 1am the vital supplies are delivered: "Thank you everyone. We are safe. Made it to the hospital. This is not pretty. #tahrir."

Twitter is awash with chilling reports of the unusually strong teargas. "Saw a man in ambulance suffering from severe epilepsy. Doctor said nerve agents within the teargas very concentrated," reported @mosaaberizing, aka Mosa'ab Elshamy, a photographer-protester, at the height of the clashes. Mona Seif, a campaigner against military trials since the Scaf (military council) took over and the sister of imprisoned blogger Alaa Abd El Fattah, is still suffering from the effects: "For 2 days toxic gases cause me: fever, diarrhea, sore throat, aching muscles specially back & legs. :( I couldn't even go visit my brother."

The festive spirit of February was not as prominent in the tweets, replaced by a gritty determination and pride. Elshamy described "a full house energetic Tahrir with not a single stage or political party banner. Hasn't been more beautiful." Meanwhile activists shared jokes about the appointment of Kamal Ganzoury as the new prime minister. For Tahrir, he is already irrelevant. As Mohamed El Dahshan, a writer and economist, tweeted under the name @TravellerW, "I don't care if they get #Ganzoury or the #Tahrir sweet potatoes vendor as PM. Is #Scaf stil in power? Yes? See you in the street."

Alex Nunns is co-editor of Tweets from Tahrir, published by OR Books. For live tweets from Tahrir click here

Sign up for the Guardian Today

Our editors' picks for the day's top news and commentary delivered to your inbox each morning.

Multimedia

Egyptian troops have deployed barbed wire fences and barricades and concrete blocks to separate protesters and riot police in and around sidestreets leading from Cairo's Tahrir Square to the nearby interior ministry in a bid to prevent further violent clashes